


You Don't Have To Stay

by KingOnHisBoard



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5867227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingOnHisBoard/pseuds/KingOnHisBoard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Zane and Ty would travel to Texas for holidays, birthdays and sometimes even just long weekends out of nowhere, just like they did with Ty’s family in West Virginia. It had become a pleasant experience, and it wasn’t rare for Zane to be feeling excited in the days leading up to the flight home.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>However, when he had to travel to Texas because his father was in the hospital, being kept alive by machines from a horrific car accident, excitement was the very last thing Zane was feeling.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>This time, he hated going to Texas.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Have To Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of this Tumblr prompt, as requested by an anon:
> 
> _"You don't have to stay."_

Over the years that had followed since Zane and Ty had announced their relationship – and later their marriage – to Zane’s family, coming to Texas was no longer as stressful and as uncomfortable as it had been for as long as Zane could remember. In fact, he had started looking forward to the visits to the ranch with his husband. Beverly was still working on accepting her son for who he was, but she was constantly making progress.

Slow progress, sure, but progress nevertheless.

Zane and Ty would travel to Texas for holidays, birthdays and sometimes even just long weekends out of nowhere, just like they did with Ty’s family in West Virginia. It had become a pleasant experience, and it wasn’t rare for Zane to be feeling excited in the days leading up to the flight home.

However, when he had to travel to Texas because his father was in the hospital, being kept alive by machines from a horrific car accident, excitement was the very last thing Zane was feeling.

This time, he hated going to Texas.

Harrison had been kept on life support for six days now, and Zane had been at his bedside for the past four. The doctors couldn’t tell him when his father was going to wake up, because right now, nobody could say for sure that Harrison waking up was even a possibility.

It was heartbreaking, seeing his father lying helpless and unconscious in a hospital bed, with a tube down his throat, breathing for him. He looked so fragile and weak, in a way that Zane had never seen him before. Harrison Garrett had always been the strongest man Zane had ever known, but now… Now Harrison wasn’t even able to be strong enough to keep his own lungs active.

Zane felt as if he’d been running on autopilot ever since he’d gotten the call from Annie. He didn’t leave his father’s side unless it was to eat, hydrate or take care of his business in the bathroom, and all he did for the rest of the day was to sit in that uncomfortable chair by his father’s bed and hold his hand.

Sometimes he tried talking, as if hearing his son’s voice was somehow going to pull Harrison out of his coma and back to the world of the living. As if Zane’s voice could hold that much power.

He just wanted his father back, was that really too much to ask? He’d already lost his wife in a car crash years ago, and he’d nearly lost Ty in that goddamned car in New York, during the Tri-State case. He’d had his share of traffic-related loss and trauma.

It wasn’t fair that now he might end up losing his father too.

Zane had been sitting still for so long that he had lost track of a resemblance of time, so when he was brought out of his daze by a gentle hand on his shoulder, Zane jerked.

“It’s just me,” Came Ty’s soothing voice, as he sat in the chair next to Zane’s, his hand moving from Zane’s shoulder down to his thigh. With his other hand, Ty handed Zane a cup of steaming hot coffee. “Any changes?”

Zane shook his head, taking the cup with a sigh as he continued staring at his father. “Nothing.”

Ty nodded, and Zane knew without looking that the expression on his husband’s face was as broken as the one on his own.

The only man in the world who loved Harrison Garrett as much as Zane did was Ty Grady.

But it had been six days without any significant changes. Without any signs that were telling as to whether Harrison was ever going to wake up or not. Ty had a hard time sitting still for more than an hour at a time, so he was most likely going out of his mind now, after four days of doing nothing but sitting around in a hospital.

He’d brought the cats with him, of course; both Jiminy and Cricket now fully grown and massive balls of fur that were roaming the hallway of the floor Harrison was on. The nurses and doctors had protested at first, but when they’d seen the effect the huge things had on the other patients, they’d decided to turn a blind eye. The cats were good at cheering up the patients, and they stayed on the floor unless prompted by patients to jump onto their beds. They didn’t destroy anything, didn’t play with important equipment, and didn’t make a mess. They had litter boxes and food bowls in the nurse’s stations, and Ty regularly made sure to keep the boxes clean and the bowls filled.

And despite the fact that the cats provided Ty with some entertainment, Zane knew his husband. Ty was getting restless, even if he wasn’t showing it.

“You don’t have to stay.” Zane eventually said, and his voice came out as weaker than he had intended.

He could see Ty’s head turning to look at him in his peripheral vision, and Zane sighed, reluctantly meeting his husband’s gaze.

“We’ve been here for four days, and nothing has happened. I know how much you hate sitting around and doing nothing, so I’m giving you a free pass. You don’t have to stay.”

For a moment, Ty was looking at him as if Zane had gone absolutely mad, but it wasn’t long before his expression softened into something else – something gentle and loving that never failed to have Zane’s heart racing.

Ty’s hand moved from Zane’s thigh to take his hand, and he curled their fingers together.

“Of course I do,” Ty said softly, his gaze slowly moving from Zane’s face to Harrison motionless form in the hospital bed. “He’s family.”

When he said that, Zane knew that Ty didn’t mean that Harrison was his family. He was saying he was theirs, and Zane had never loved him more.


End file.
